Only Death
by Bliss-06
Summary: Written for NFA Community Tearjerker challenge issued by channelD .. another very angsty tragic fic centered around Jenny. Not for the faint of heart! Minor season 5 spoilers.


She glares at her reflection in the mirror. She's been standing there for an hour now, just glaring. Ever since she got home from the doctor's office.

Hatred. Self-loathing. Disbelief. Confusion. Betrayal.

Each emotion flickers across her face faintly. One never staying for more than a couple of seconds before being replaced with the next.

Her body has betrayed her. She can feel the disease coursing through her veins. She can feel it eating away at her internal organs. She can feel it wrap itself around her heart, cutting off her life slowly.

She's sure she is responsible for her own illness. Too many broken relationships. Too many grudges. Too many obsessions. Too many wasted years. This is her repayment, she's sure of it.

Hatred and self-loathing seem to linger longer than the other emotions. She sees the fatigue in her eyes; the disease has already begun to transform her into an ugly, debilitated version of herself. Soon she would simply be a shadow of who she once was.

This thought makes her sick and she drops to her knees in front of the toilet and vomits violently.

Once again in front of the mirror, she's panting heavily. Hot tears trickle down her cheeks. She can't stand what she's becoming – what the disease is doing to her. It's making her weak and vulnerable, and this infuriates her.

In a fit of rage and desperation, she cries out and slams her hand against the mirror. It shatters and she sinks to the floor in a haze of tears and fury. The room is spinning and fuzzy, and she stares down at her broken hand, wondering why she bleeds.

The blood flows freely, staining her pants and pooling on the tile floor. It looks normal. A childish, irrational part of her thought it would be green and sickly looking. _Like an alien's_. She shakes her head and forces the juvenile thought away, trying to regain control.

Despair overwhelms her and a gut-wrenching sob wracks her body. She knows she cannot stand to sit back and watch herself wither away. Perhaps this is why she feels so distraught, because she knows that she must take her own life before the disease destroys it. Another sob.

Tears mix with blood as she wipes her face. She chokes on another sob, triggering a coughing fit. Anger replaces despair and she immediately stops crying. She glares at the blood and tears on her hands; she stands and steadies herself against the bathroom counter.

A trail of bright red blood drops leads to red fingerprints smeared on the faucet. Clear water turns red as it escapes down the drain. Salty tears mix with blood, leaving red streaks on her face. Red. Everything's red.

She feels her life seeping out of her wounds; trickling from her veins with the blood. It mars the purity of the white marble counters, staining it with angry red splotches.

She ponders how she'll do it; perhaps with pills, maybe with her own gun. _No._ She won't do it with her gun, the result would be too messy – too gruesome. She didn't want him to see that.

_Jethro._

The name brings more tears, and she hangs her head. She can't tell him. She can't bear it. He will refuse to accept it, setting out on an epic quest to make her better. But she knows better than that. There is no getting better.

Only death.

Maybe she'll get lucky, and will be killed on duty. _No_. Too many people are paid to prevent that.

_Pills_. She decides. And for the first time since she had returned from her appointment, her eyes are focused and clear.

There are so many things to do, so many things to say. She is determined to beat the disease in her own way; to beat it before it can beat her. She's faced death before, but this is different. There is no escape route, no safe word. No backup. She's on her own, and no one can save her.

She's afraid. She doesn't like losing control. She can't play politics with death; she can't pull her sig on it. She can't negotiate with it.

Panic briefly captures her breath before she recovers and suppresses it. She can't allow the disease to gain the upper hand; she has to maintain control as long as possible. She refuses to permit it to do to her what she has seen it do to so many of her loved ones.

An image of herself fills her mind: she's curled up on a hospital bed, shriveled away into skin and bones, the faces of her few friends staring at her with pity and grief twisting their features. She feels nauseous again, and she squeezes her eyes shut, blocking the image out.

She's not sure where to begin; what to fix first. There are so many regrets. Her thoughts return to Jethro, and she heaves a heavy sigh. She will have to be careful with him. He knows her frustratingly well, and will know that something's not right. She knows it isn't fair to keep him in the dark, but she feels she deserves this bit of selfishness. She's already facing death, she doesn't want to face Jethro too.

There's only one thing she's sure of, and that's that she's running out of time. Soon there will be no breath left within her; no words left to speak. The life will be gone from her soon enough, and nothing will remain.

Only death.

_No. Not yet._ She won't go until she's ready, and even then it will be her own doing. She can control at least that. She closes her eyes, a mixture of determination and desperation settle in her belly. She'll keep them close; to call on when her body tires. She finally notices the aching in her hand.

Blood continues to drip slowly.

_Drip_. – another memory.

_Drip_.– another regret.

_Drip_. – another face.

_Drip_. – another breath.

Each splash of red marks another moment lost. She feels her time fading with each wave of pain.

Death lingers in the shadows, waiting.


End file.
